🩸 Year 10: The Hunger 🩸
Ten years of feeding. Ten years of craving. Ten years realizing it will never be enough.
The Pattern
It had been ten years since the Whispering Woods. Ten years since Xanther accepted Talveran's bracelet. Ten years since the chaos magic fused with his soul.
Ten years of hunger.
At first, he'd thought he could control it. The craving came in waves. When it hit, he would channel chaos magic. Shape reality. Bend the laws of nature. Watch order dissolve into beautiful, perfect entropy.
And for a few hours, the hunger would quiet.
Then it would return. Stronger.
Year one: The hunger came every few weeks.
Year three: Every few days.
Year five: Every day.
Year seven: Multiple times a day.
Year ten: It never stopped.
The Night
Xanther stood in the Royal Gardens at midnight, hands trembling. Relana was asleep in their chambers. Their son, barely two years old, safe in the nursery.
He'd fed the hunger three times today already. Shaped a minor storm over the eastern mountains. Transmuted stone to glass in the palace courtyard. Bent probability itself during a council meeting to ensure a favorable vote.
None of it helped.
The craving clawed at his insides. A physical ache now, not just mental. His bones felt hollow. His skin too tight. The bracelet on his wrist pulsed with heat, Talveran's chaos magic singing in harmony with the corruption already rooted deep in his soul.
More. More. More.
He raised his hand. Chaos energy crackled between his fingers, emerald and obsidian. So easy. Just a little more. Just enough to quiet the hunger for a few more hours.
The Garden
The rose bushes died first. Their petals turned black, crumbling to ash. Then the oak trees twisted, bark splitting as reality bent around them. The fountain's water reversed its flow, climbing upward in defiance of gravity.
Xanther gasped as the power flowed through him. Yes. This was what he needed. The hunger quieted, replaced by euphoria. He was a god. A master of chaos and order both. He could reshape the world itself.
Then he saw the child.
A gardener's daughter, maybe six years old, standing at the edge of the garden. She'd probably woken from a nightmare, come looking for her father.
Now she stood frozen, eyes wide with terror, as chaos energy rippled toward her.
Xanther slammed his power shut. The energy dissipated. The fountain's water crashed back down. The oak trees groaned, their twisted forms locked in permanent distortion.
The girl ran.
Xanther sank to his knees among the dead roses.
He'd almost killed a child.
Not on purpose. Not with malice.
But because the hunger didn't care about collateral damage.
It only cared about being fed.
The Realization
Diaglo found him there an hour later, still kneeling among the ash and twisted trees.
"My King?"
Xanther looked up. His eyes, golden now instead of their original brown, reflected chaos energy even when he wasn't actively channeling it.
"It's getting worse," he said quietly.
Diaglo nodded. He knew. Of course he knew. He'd been the one feeding Xanther that unknown substance every day for ten years now. Always in his food. Always undetected by Angelo or the palace staff.
"Perhaps," Diaglo said softly, "you need something stronger. Something to satisfy the craving properly."
Xanther's hands clenched. "Like what?"
"There are ancient places. Cities lost to time. The Shifting Sands hold many secrets. Artifacts of power that could..." He paused. "Stabilize you."
"Stabilize." Xanther laughed, bitter. "Or feed the addiction stronger?"
Diaglo's expression didn't change. "Does it matter? If the hunger never stops, you might as well embrace it. Become what you're meant to be."
The Truth of Year Ten
Xanther had spent ten years believing he could control the hunger.
Ten years thinking each feeding would be the last.
Ten years lying to himself about what he was becoming.
Tonight, he finally understood.
The hunger would never stop.
It would only grow.
And he would have to choose: resist until it destroyed him, or embrace it and become something else entirely.
The Choice Ahead
Xanther stood, brushing ash from his robes. The dead garden surrounded him. Evidence of what he'd done. What he was capable of. What he would do again tomorrow, and the day after, and every day for the rest of his very long life.
"Tell me about the Shifting Sands," he said quietly.
Diaglo smiled.